CHAPTER X
TRAJAN IN ARMENIA AND MESOPOTAMIA
THE campaign of Corbulo had achieved a temporary though costly settlement of the Armenian succession which left that country well within the sphere of Roman influence. The inroads of the Alani broke upon Parthia about a.d. 72 and drew her attention again to her eastern frontier, where, from the middle of the first century, she had been gradually losing ground. At the time Josephus was writing, in the latter part of the first century, the Euphrates was still the western boundary.[1] With Roman interests occupied elsewhere and Parthian arms engaged in the east, ancient historians of the western world found little of note to record.
In April, 78, a king by the name of Pacorus (II) began striking coins at the Seleucia-Ctesiphon mint; but Vologases I was able to continue his issues from the same place, and even during the same month.[2] This evidence for the struggle between pretender and ruler continues until the end of the next year, when
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